The relevance and importance of
maternal deprivation monkey experiments continue to be
scientifically debated because of conceptual and
methodological flaws in the experimental design.
Psychologist and monkey researcher Leonard Rosenblum has
continued this research paradigm to investigate human panic
disorder through an induced condition in monkeys, believed
to sufficiently replicate panic disorder to quality as an
animal model. However, since panic disorder cannot be
diagnosed in monkeys by established clinical psychiatric
criteria, and since specifications for a valid animal model
established by monkey researchers themselves are not met,
the monkey condition does not model the human one. Critical
psychological factors correlated with panic disorder are not
convincingly demonstrated in monkeys, and laboratory-induced
stress confounds the results. Therefore, as is typical of
maternal deprivation experiments, Rosenblum's
non-explanatory monkey data merely dramatize already known
human findings by unnecessarily transforming ideas from one
conceptual system (human psychology) to another (animal
behavior). For reasons of economic feasibility, scientific
validity, and medical accuracy, Rosenblum's animal studies
in particular, and maternal deprivation monkey research in
general, should be defunded and phased out.

For over 30 years, researchers have
forced monkeys to undergo maternalseparation or
deprivation in order to "model" suchhuman conditions as
depression, alcoholism, aggression, and maternal-infant
bonding.1-15 Three major critiques by Michael
Giannelli,16 Martin Stephens,17 and Brandon
Reines18-19 have challenged the scientific
underpinningsof this work. An exhaustive review of the
literature hasnot revealed a single attempt
by the monkey researchers toaddress criticisms raised by
these scholars. Expanding on thework of Giannelli, Stephens,
and Reines, this report focuseson the research of Leonard
Rosenblum, which involvesexposing monkeys to
drug-maternal deprivationcombinations in order to
"model" human panic disorder.20 Like other
maternal deprivation projects, this research
isfundamentally flawed.

DESCRIPTION OF PRIOR RESEARCHSince monkeyresearcher Leonard
Rosenblum assumed directorship of thePrimate Behavior
Laboratory at the State University of NewYork (SUNY) in 1963,
he has been conducting maternaldeprivation experiments with
bonnet and pigtail macaque monkeys.20 Prior to this
position, he trained under Harry Harlowat the University of
Wisconsin, who pioneered maternal deprivation
research.20,21Early maternal deprivation monkey researchers,
including Rosenblum, linkedmaternal deprivation in monkey
infants with the subsequentdevelopment of "depression."
One of Rosenblum's first studiesat SUNY found that pigtail
macaque infants were severelydisturbed after removal from
their mothers. Their loudscreams and "massive
struggle(s)" showed them to be"distressed" for the entire
day, and most of them were deeply"depressed" the next
day as well: "Each infant sat hunchedover, almost rolled
into a ball. . . Movement wasrare. . . The movement that did
occur appeared to be inslow motion. . . The infant
rarely responded to a social invitationor made a social
gesture, and play virtually ceased. . ."22 The researchers
identified stages of protest and despairin the pigtail
macaques similar to findings in rhesus
macaques,and called these stages "agitation" and
"depression."Unlike rhesus macaques, however, the pigtails
showed a thirdgradual and incomplete phase,
which they called "recovery."Mothers and infants showed a
resurgence of interaction when reunited.22,23When thesestudies were first performed on
bonnet macaques,Rosenblum found that the
"depression" phase was absent.24,25 Further
manipulations did include a "depressed" state which
wasless severe than that seen in other monkeys.26
Gathering foodfrom a foraging device had a
therapeutic effect in thosemonkeys "disturbed" by partial
isolation. The success of this"therapy" depended on the
monkeys' status in the dominance hierarchy.27Later, Rosenblum resumed studies on pigtail
macaques, finding that theyappeared "depressed" during the
first separation night,but not during daytime
observations over the next few days.Rosenblum viewed the
infants' behavior both as a response to theloss of mother and
as an attempt to cope without the mother.28

SIGNIFICANCE OF PRIOR RESEARCHThe
generalizationof these findings to
humans--presumably the purposeof maternal deprivation
experiments--poses quite a challenge.First, what does it
mean to diagnose "depression" in a monkey?Diagnosing
"depression" in a monkey undermines thesuccessful ongoing
process of clarifying psychiatric diagnosesby using DSM
criteria.29 Strict adherence to DSM-IVcriteria of
depression does not allow for a diagnosis
ofdepression in monkeys, for the subjective
experience that includesdepressed mood, diminished
interest, pleasure, concentrationand energy, appetite
change, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness
andexcessive guilt, indecisiveness, and thoughts of
death29 cannot be ascertained, but rather only
conjectured via inference frommonkey behavior. Although
clinical psychiatry has becomesufficiently sophisticated to
appreciate that mood andbehavior are neither identical
nor predictably derived fromone another, animal research
allows for no such distinction.Noted monkey maternal deprivation researcher
(and Harlow student)Stephen Suomi, acknowledging
dissimilar sensitivities toexperiences of early separation
in different non-human primate species,3 has become more
circumspect in 1995--carefullyreferring to the condition that
resembles depression inmonkeys as "something
equivalent to depression"4 --than he was 24
years earlier, when, like other maternaldeprivation monkey
experimenters, he referred to the monkeycondition as
"depression."5 Suomi's current appellation,however, is a hedge,
for it successfully sidesteps the questionby not presuming
that the monkeys suffer from the humansyndrome of
depression, while at the same time implyingthat, whatever they
actually do suffer from, it can serve as amodel of human
depression. Such a presumption is, in
actuality,only an unscientific assumption, supported by
neitherconvincing data nor DSM-IV criteria. Unlike
Suomi's morecareful, if still inaccurate, description of the
monkeys' state,Rosenblum continues to refer to
maternally deprived monkeys as "depressed."22,23,30Just as there are no valid animal models for
schizophrenia, aggressiondisorders, addiction disorders,
and Alzheimer's Disease,31,32 human
depression is a distinctly human disorder for which
noanimal model exists, regardless of the repeated
attempts to modelit through maternal deprivation
in monkeys.5,30 Likewise,
learned helplessness in monkeys,33
crowding-inducedaggression in
rats,34 smoking in mice,35 and alcohol
consumptionin dogs36 were once, but are
no longer, considered animalmodels of human depression,
aggression, and addiction.One
of the difficulties in modelling human behavior through
monkeybehavior is that the latter varies significantly
among differentspecies, as can be seen in
"depression-like," social status,aggressive, and
child-care behaviors. With respect to"depression-like"
behavior in monkeys, Rosenblum himself, aspreviously
mentioned, has shown that it varies among
similarmonkey species (rhesus, bonnet, and pigtail
macaques.)22-28Regardingsocial status factors,
Rosenblum has shown that bonnet monkeys'status in the group
hierarchy was a key determinant oftheir success in
using effective foraging to reverse partialisolation-induced
disturbed behavior.27 However,
sincehierarchy characteristics vary among monkey
species, it is difficultto know the relationship
between the positions of monkeys'in their hierarchies
and humans in society. For examplewriter Deborah Blum
summarizes:

Squirrel monkeys are a
fiercely feminist society. In the wild,the females hang
together--the inner circle--andthe males hover at the edges,
permitted inonly during mating season. . .Rhesus macaques
livewithin a rigid and intolerant caste system
thathas less to do with sex than with the family
oneis born into. Male and female is not the
issuehere, it's the monkey version of feudal society. .
.Baboons are a patriarchal society
dominatedby males and fascinated by food.
Huntingfor the daily meal is one of their favorite
occupations...37

Jeffrey Massonsupports the notion
of questioning the significanceof hierarchy by pointing out
that both lemurs and mountainpigmy-possums also show female
dominance, and that the entireidea of dominance may be
fraudulent:

In recent years the idea of
the dominant hierarchy has becomemore controversial,
with some scientistsasking if such hierarchies are
real or a product ofhuman expectations. . .The idea
of observinganimals engaged in mysterious
behaviorand charting a tidy hierarchy that
producestestable predictions has great appeal for
scientists.38

Apart fromdominance-hierarchy issues,
studies show distinctionsbetween monkey species in other
behaviors, i.e., aggression andcaretaker. Whereas members of
many monkey species oftencompete aggressively for
status, food, and mates, with thirdparties
participating in fights by joining a friend or
relative,Tonkean macaques from the Indonesian island of
Sulawesioften break up fights among their neighbors.39
Also, in tropicalclimates males only rarely
carry their young, whereas intemperate climates this
behavior is common.40 It is apparentthat behaviors of
one species of monkey do not automaticallygeneralize to
another, let alone to humans. This being
thecase, how can it be determined which monkey data
would applyto humans? Which monkey species should be used to
generalizeits particular "depression-like" behavior, social
structure,aggressive habits, or child-care characteristics
to humans? While Rosenblum considers bonnet macaques to be
"particularly suitedfor the experimental study of
anxiety problems" becausethey are gregarious and stable
and show low baseline levels of anxiety,20 it is not at all
clear that these characteristics makethem suitable
scientific models for human anxiety studies. More likely,
Rosenblum chosebonnet macaques because of "our
30 years of experience with them"20 a rationale that
echoes Suomi's observation thatanimal models
areused for practical and pragmatic rather than
scientificreasons: "The primary rationalefor creating most
animal modelslies not so much in any obvious impressive
strengths ofsuch modelsas it lies in the problems
inherent in conducting research with humans as
subjects."6 Similarly, Rosenblumhas written: "Obvious ethical
and practical problemspreclude controlled prospective
studies with humans, but arange of
prospectivemanipulations are possible with nonhuman
primates."20 Given the considerable difficulty in
determiningwhich species and which experimental manipulation
mostclearly resemble human depression, it is hardly
surprising thatresearchers have had difficulty
in choosing a model on ascientific basis and have
rather relied on non-scientific factorssuch as
availability, expedience, convenience, and
personalexperience.